Related papers: Conservation Laws and Thermodynamic Efficiencies
[...] By the beginning of the 20th century, the principles of thermodynamics were summarized into the so-called four laws, which were, as it turns out, definitive negative answers to the doomed quests for perpetual motion machines. As a…
We revisit the concavity property of the thermodynamic entropy in order to formulate a general proof of the minimum energy principle as well as of other equivalent extremum principles that are valid for thermodynamic potentials and…
We define thermodynamic configurations and identify two primitives of discrete quantum processes between configurations for which heat and work can be defined in a natural way. This allows us to uncover a general second law for any discrete…
We study how conservation laws shape the spreading of quantum coherence in many-body dynamics. Focusing on $U(1)$-symmetric random circuits, charge-and-dipole conserving circuits, as well as ergodic Hamiltonian dynamics, we probe coherences…
It is demonstrated that the canonical distribution for a subsystem of a closed system follows directly from the solution of the time-reversible Newtonian equation of motion in which the total energy is strictly conserved. It is shown that…
Phenomenological nonequilibrium thermodynamics describes how fluxes of conserved quantities such as matter, energy and charge flow from outer reservoirs across a system, and how they irreversibly degrade from one form to another. Stochastic…
The Carnot theorem, one expression of the second law of thermodynamics, places a fundamental upper bound on the efficiency of heat engines operating between two heat baths. The Carnot theorem can be stated in a more generalized form for…
The interplay between quantum-mechanical properties, such as coherence, and classical notions, such as energy, is a subtle topic at the forefront of quantum thermodynamics. The traditional Carnot argument limits the conversion of heat to…
The constraint relation for efficiency and power is crucial to design optimal heat engines operating within finite time. We find a universal constraint between efficiency and output power for heat engines operating in the low-dissipation…
The stochastic differential equations for a model of dissipative particle dynamics, with both total energy and total momentum conservation at every time-step, are presented. The algorithm satisfies detailed balance as well as the…
The introduction of the quantum analogue of a Carnot engine based on a bath comprising of particles with a small amount of coherence initiated an active line of research on the harnessing of different quantum resources for the enhancement…
We analyze the time-resolved energy transport and the entropy production in ac-driven quantum coherent electron systems coupled to multiple reservoirs at finite temperature. At slow driving we formulate the first and second laws of…
We present the computer simulation results of a chain of hard point particles with alternating masses interacting on its extremes with two thermal baths at different temperatures. We found that the system obeys Fourier's law at the…
Since its inception about two centuries ago thermodynamics has sparkled continuous interest and fundamental questions. According to the second law no heat engine can have an efficiency larger than Carnot's efficiency. The latter can be…
We study a class of cyclic Brownian heat engines in the framework of finite-time thermodynamics. For infinitely long cycle times, the engine works at the Carnot efficiency limit producing, however, zero power. For the efficiency at maximum…
The thermodynamic limit of the internal energy and the entropy of the system of quantum interacting particles in random medium is shown to exist under the crucial requirements of stability and temperedness of interactions. The energy turns…
Heat engines constitute the major building blocks of modern technologies. However, conventional heat engines with higher power yield lesser efficiency and vice versa and respect various power-efficiency trade-off relations. This is also…
The maximum efficiency of autonomous engines with finite chemical potential difference is investigated. We show that without a particular type of singularity autonomous engines cannot attain the Carnot efficiency. In addition, we…
We consider a gas of quasi-free quantum particles confined to a finite box, subjected to singular magnetic and electric fields. We prove in great generality that the finite volume grand-canonical pressure is jointly analytic in the chemical…
Conservation laws are discussed in conjunction with quantum-mechanical indeterminacies of the corresponding observables. The considered examples show that the connections between energy and its indeterminacy may be quite intricate. The…